It is a wise man who knows his limits. One risks injury or even death in the search.
Enough of group treks. I decided to do the Camino Auca Trail alone. It is an ancient trail, once used by the Yumbos, aborigial inhabiants who have since vanished. Equiped with a geographic maps from the Military and a trek description from a guide book, I set off.
I was confident in a two day hike. I taught map reading while an instructor with the ROTC department at the University of Nevada and had real experience in the US Marines. While trekking in Peru, things had always gone well.
However, in the Andes, in the cloud forests I spent three days close to lost and desperate at the end. In the cloud forest, one can't see more that 100 meters in any direction due to both the vegitatons and the fog.. topographical features are unavaliable. There were no trail signs. The trail was steep and then steeper. Leaving the trail was both impossible, because of the thick vegitation and foolish, because of the impossibility to self navigation with compass and map!
At the end of the first day, I knew I was in trouble. I had no idea of where to put myself on the map. My only source of confidence was that I was on a trail! But not necessarily the one I wanted. That day I came to a fork. The trail, on one side, broke hard to the right and descended abruptly. So steep was it that I knew if I took it, and it was wrong, I would be totally screwed! Unable to climb back. Bring impossible to reclimb. I took the other.
Two hours later I came to a dead end! I began to retrace my steps. Cold and wet, with a wet pack that later weighed at 50 pounds, I climbed the trail backup. Fifty steps and I had to stop for fifty breaths. Then 50 more steps and 50 more deep breaths! At 3:00 the rain came. I pitched my tent and shivered all night in a wet bag. The next morning I started out again, Thinking that if it got any tougher and I any worse (a continuing process at 10,000 feet!), I would leave my pack and hope to find relief somewhere or sleep in the jungle wrapped in my rainponcho.
A farmer on a horse passed by. I greeted him but he kept on going. At 50 feet he stopped and returned, offering the tail of horse to pull me along. I knew I couldn't keep up. So I offered him $10 to take my pack to the next town. He agree and left me alone. The going was still very tough and I wished I had bought the horse! the trail got steeper and I thought again about sleeping in my ponch, in the rain, in the jungle, alone. Then he returned!! He put me on the animal and walked for hours beside me until we got to a farm with cars parked outside. I met the owners and asked for a ride back to Quito. They agreed.
While on the horse, I realized that the distance to help was still great and I might have taken another night and day. A later map recon told me that with the ups and downs of Andes travel the trek was really 50 kilometers!! (30 miles). I never would have made it. I paid the farmer $30! and thanked God for him coming across me!
Cotopaxi is a snowcovered active volcano. Not erupting right now, so no stories about struggeling across rock plates, floating on lava flows or clouds of noxious gases threatening my lungs. Still a treachous and steep climb through the snow fields and across the glaciers. 
These are key elevations. The "Refugio" is the climbers lodge. At night 25 degrees for sleeping. I got to 5,350 meters altitude before turning around. Left the lodge at 12:30 and reversed progress five hours later. After five hours in subfreezing weather, on ice crampons and having put out maximum effort, I decided a wise man knows his limits. (I strive for self knowledge.)
The top of the photo is the summit of Cotopaxi. Th center bottom, small, is the lodge.
This is Hermin, my Ecuadorian guide.
The effort was before sunrise to avoid the snow and ice from going soft.
"Maybe this was another bad idea?"
One of many glaciers perils. This one was about 15 feet across. The pits are ice, nearly impossible to escape from without ice tools! 
